CHAMPIONING CREATIVITY SINCE 2007

Oh hi there. How nice of you to stop by. Have you lost weight? Your hair looks great. Just one thing I suppose, your ears look kind of depressed. No, no it’s a thing. Yeah don’t take it the wrong way. Anyway I’ve got just the thing – the It’s Nice That podcast Studio Audience. So kick back and enjoy a dose of art and design chat and listen out for the Alex dismissing maths in its entirety. Enjoy!

Section One – Content from the site

Michael Hauptman One Direction for Wonderland

Michael Hauptman One Direction for Wonderland

Yeah you’ve probably been stopped dead in your tracks by this cover at least once in the last few weeks, but better late than never. What better way to say goodbye to the week than with this gloriously cute photo shoot by photographer Michael Hauptman for Wonderland magazine, and art directed by U S E F U L

There’s a lot of cynicism in the world today, thanks predominantly to Twitter and the web in general, but it took one of London’s best fashion magazines to shout “stop!” and embrace One Direction for what they really are: the cultural icons of today. Yep, that’s right, suck it up, they’re here and they ain’t going anywhere. Sure, their bank balances alone make you want to go home and drink cyanide under a towel, but let’s just stop being bitter for one second and take a leaf out of Wonderland’s book. Commissioning Michael, with his rainbow-tinted specs style of photography was the first thing they did right, the second was getting the puppies in. Whoever thought that up deserves a medal and a promotion, stat.www.itsnicethat.com/articles/one-direction-for-wonderland

Romain Laurent: Shadows

Romain Laurent: Shadows

We’re all familiar with the boldness of Manhattan – a bright, fast, vivid and relentless metropolis that never sleeps. Constantly bathed in artificial light originating from its transport, advertising, entertainment, housing and sidewalks scattered with street lamps. But as hurricane Sandy delivered its devastating blow, sending a vast water surge towards the city and submerging all power sources, the city wasn’t just flooded in water, but in an eerie silence under the cloak of complete darkness. Romain Laurent has captured these moments where the greatest, richest city on earth fell victim to nature, exposing a vulnerability against which it can never be completely defended.

There was no street life, very few cars, and in this obscurity the few people Romain crossed “were unidentifiable shadows punctuated by flashlights.” This collection of images exposes this unusual environment that was left stranded for several nights, evoking a sense of fear alongside the natural curiosity of the unknown. Overall,Shadows communicates these surreal impressions experienced by residents as they roamed the streets isolated in the pitch black.www.itsnicethat.com/articles/shadows-romain-laurent

An archive Vice cover

Ten Years of Vice

It’s gone from being the magazine your mum hated you bringing into the house to an innovative addition to the way news and pop culture is covered in this country. But as the UK version of Vice celebrates turning ten is the enfant terrible of the mag world still discernible in say, the recent sober and thought-provoking Syria issue?

“The aims are still the same – to cover stories either that other people won’t cover or to cover stories in a way other people wouldn’t do them,” European managing editor Bruno Bayley told us.Read the full interview here

Further reading:

Posted by
Rob Alderson

Editor-in-Chief Rob oversees editorial across all three It’s Nice That platforms; online, print and events. He has a background in newspaper journalism and a particular interest in art, advertising and photography. He is the main host of the Studio Audience podcast.

This week’s most viewed articles

This won’t be the best-shot, best-edited film you’ve seen all day but it’ll definitely be the most exciting. Volvo (the car manufacturer) have just released a luminous paint that’s invisible during the day and then brightly fluorescent at night as soon as car headlights bounce off it. Spray it on your bike, helmet, clothing – maybe even your face – to make sure you’re lit up like a Christmas tree whenever you set off on nighttime rides.

Got the mid-week hump-day gloom, friend? Allow me to do away with it for you with a bumper-pack of animated GIFs by the talented hand of illustrator and animator Julian Glander. He once came up with a clever app which transformed colour data into sound for an eight-note synth and made us all into synaesthetes for a day, which was intricate and complicated enough to warrant a dose of fun to follow. A gang of tiny blob men whirling their arms over their heads at impossible speeds? Yes, please. A tiny man on a bicycle riding in tiny circles forevermore? Go on then. Great things are in the pipeline for this master of 3D shapes, bulgy eyeballs and jumping hamburgers. You mark our words.

When I sat down to write this article I was planning to discuss Ardéchoise illustrator Marion Fayolle’s impressive career to date; her numerous books for the likes of Nobrow and Magnani Editions; her editorial work for The New York Times, her textile designs for Cotélac and Kiblind and of course her very own illustration publication Nyctalope which she co-runs with Simon Roussin. And then I remembered she did a brilliant book of saucy drawings, Les Coquins, and decided to focus on that instead.

Good news everyone, you can now get access to the Printed Pages archive online! It’s been ages since we sold out of the last few copies of our first four issues and if we’re honest, we’ve been getting nostalgic for all those lovely articles we published way back in 2013. There was that interview with Sagmeister & Walsh when they’d only just made Jessica a partner, our racy chat with Dian Hanson about her career in pornographic magazines, the time we found out who put a massive crack down the middle of Tate Modern and our sunny visit to Geoff McFetridge’s LA studio.

FKA twigs has become the poster girl for everything that’s contemporary and cool. Her music is cutting edge, her style is unmatched and her videos always cause a stir. This new one is no different; directed by the artist herself in collaboration with Boots, Glass & Patron features a pregnant Twigs giving birth to a sea of colour in characteristically creepy settings. Cue a seriously heavy bassline, voguing in the woods and a cast of characters part human part cyborg who round things off nicely. If I’m honest the first minute or so almost lost my attention, but the rewards of the second half left me slack-jawed and wide-eyed. Now hold that pose for me…

Most recent articles

Prepare your mouse-clicking finger for what might be the best collaboration since Madonna, Britney and Christina Aguilera snogged live on stage – Google Maps has transformed into an interactive and completely playable version of Pac-Man, and it’s bloody brilliant. You can take the yellow-faced protagonist to your local high street, New York’s Time Square, or hop right over to Niagara Falls and run riot in those streets too. Basically, wherever Google can go, you can play.

So you know how we provide you with multiple hits of arts and design goodness week in week out and ask BASICALLY NOTHING in return? Well we’d be forever in your debt if you could spare five minutes to take part in our latest audience survey. We have some big plans for the next few months but we want to make sure that whatever we do is rooted in what our readers want and expect, and so we’re super-keen to hear your views.

Ricky Gervais is a figure who splits opinion and for every acolyte who hails him as the saviour of contemporary comedy, there’s plenty more who just can’t stand that laugh. I happen to be in the former camp and I am also a fan of postmodern advertising, so these new spots for Optus push pretty much all of my buttons. Commissioned to promote the Australian telecoms company bringing Netflix Down Under, Gervais is on typically obtuse form, whingeing about the expectations put on him, shamelessly plugging his own successes and revelling in his own unprofessionalism. Your views on Gervais will dictate your reaction to these, but if like me you enjoy his posturing then there’s plenty here to enjoy.

When I was 14 music merchandise was pretty much all I thought about. My rucksack was covered in patches emblazoned with band logos, my T-shirts were exclusively black and baggy, showing off my love for Nirvana, Mudvayne, Papa Roach and a whole heap of rap metal bands I’m frankly embarrassed by today, and I’d be up in Camden every weekend adding to my collection of Judas Priest weed grinders that I was never actually going to use. I was Simon Tam’s target audience.

Earlier this month we hosted an illuminating evening of talks themed around the “pursuit of brilliance” to mark the UK launch of the HTC One M9. The sold-out event saw digital pioneer Nicolas Roope, writer and architect Sam Jacob, body architect Lucy McRae and HTC Creative Director Daniel Hundt share their insights into how creative thinking can surpass the mundane and predictable to become something truly special.

Merging the fun of the playground with the beauty and cerebral qualities of art, a slide will transport visitors to the Hayward Gallery entrance this summer thanks to the forthcoming Carsten Höller show, Decision.

Somewhat lazily I’ve included an image in this post that concisely explains exactly what Moscow Sans is, who’s created it and why – which pretty much negates this whole piece of text. But in truth it was the best example of the typeface in use that I could find, hence its inclusion with the images below. Anyway, rather than repeating the sentiments of this text I’ll just say how excited I am to see Margaret Calvert lending her expertise to this project and reiterate a widely-held view that Henrik Kubel and Scott Williams are some of the finest typographic designers working today. Enjoy!

You’d struggle to make a big, bright, shiny Jeff Koons balloon dog anything but visually brilliant, but Parisian studio Artworklove has surely done more with it than most, making it the star of some beautifully designed invitations to the artist’s show at the Pompidou centre. The colours, the scale and the stock selected work together beautifully and make a nice introduction to what the studio’s been up to since we last posted about them in 2012, when we flagged up some great art direction using a nice Julia Roberts quip. Other cool noteworthy projects they’ve carried out of late include a great identity for French furniture and homeware site La Chance, which takes a simple icon and colour palette and twists the mark into something more dynamic.

Sometimes I don’t really “get” modern art, but I get Tracey Emin’s My Bed. She displayed it as a piece of art in 1998 after practically living in it for about a month following a bad breakup. Back then she was rake-thin and impish with an appetite for booze and fags, in that odd age where you’re left to fend for yourself but are not perhaps quite ready.

Idyllic mountainous landscapes are fine and funny domestic settings are good too, but it’s not often we see illustrators tackle the subject of intricately designed custom weaponry. We appreciate Joe Melhuish’s new project all the more for its originality. He first started drawing bizarre pockets knives that look more like the jumbo Super Soakers while researching for a commission for “quite a big pop musician,” and soon became fascinated in the way weapons might grow to become an accessory to one’s identity.

Editors' Picks

He may not grace the covers of magazines or the red carpet, but designer Simon Whybray is more famous than you think. When you’re lurking about on the internet and being entertained by seriously cool and interesting stuff – do you ever stop and think, who the hell made this? Well, occasionally, it’s Simon. Designer by day, Tumblr scroller by night, Simon spends most of his time tucked up in his bedroom overlooking Old Street on his laptop. Sound lazy? It isn’t. He’s busy creating products, GIFs, designs, logos, club nights, clothing, memes, typefaces, music…you name it. Being on the internet all day has fed Simon’s brain like a drip, and subsequently he’s now asked by big brands to come in and teach them what the hell is going on out there in the real – well, online – world.

In response to a “critical graphic design” brief from their tutor at Central Saint Martins, graphic design students Ellen Mercer and Lucy Streule spliced together a tonne of clips and heartfelt scenes where movie characters let each other know, “FYI I’m a graphic designer.”

Public art project London is Changing makes Londoners uncomfortably aware of the truths we’re perhaps trying to ignore: that our city is morphing beyond recognition, that creativity is at risk, and that for many people, it’s simply becoming unaffordable.

Welcome, podders! Fantastic episode this week featuring me, Liv Siddall, and Billie Muraben and James Cartwright from the It’s Nice That team. After a great question submitted by Hattie Stewart we chewed the fat over the latest art and design news, including the new identity for the Royal Albert Hall and the much talked-about cover for The Gentlewoman. In section two we discuss London Fashion Week, the sartorial habits of creatives, our new Workwear feature and the effect social media has on the the world around fashion week. Any comments, complaints, compliments – just get in touch via Twitter, email, or the comments box below.

There aren’t many designers out there who can count a pair of shoes with GPS tracking, a race against a 3D printer and a stained glass driverless car among their recent projects, but Dominic Wilcox isn’t just any old designer. In fact, the job title “inventor” seems to be more appropriate, given that he spends his days identifying gaps in the objects we use, and experimenting with materials to develop new and intriguing ways to fill them.

Sometimes on the podcast we have enlightening discussions about pertinent art and design issues, and sometimes we make silly puns. Well this week dear listener we tick both of those boxes with some terrific chat about magazines, Designs of The Year and ELCAF but we also take a few minutes for canine-based tomfoolery. Take that expectations!

Fantastic podcast this week in which we discuss some art and design news including the new Alexander McQueen show at the V&A, a Tinder bot sensation sweeping over SXSW Festival, and how you can delve into the creative culture of a city when you are only there for a short while. Thanks to everyone who got in touch this week and for your kind words and a BIG thank you to designer David Pearson who submitted our opening question. Any other feedback much appreciated, just tweet in or leave comments in the box below. See ya next week!

WELCOME my little podlings to this week’s episode of the It’s Nice That podcast Studio Audience. Join me, Liv Siddall and my guests Rob Alderson and Maisie Skidmore in talking about this week’s most pressing art and design news Including Bjork at MoMA, Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel designer Annie Atkins, Apple watches opening garage doors, Zoolander sequel and Women of the World. Then we move on to discussing Dublin’s Offset festival and what makes an event worth going to. We also chat about the sheer brilliance of seeing or reading about a sage older creative speak about their career gone-by. Thanks to Nelly Ben Hayoun for her bizarre opening question, and thanks to Perrin over at AIGA’s blog for their gush-worthy post about this very podcast.

Welcome, podders! Fantastic episode this week featuring me, Liv Siddall, and Billie Muraben and James Cartwright from the It’s Nice That team. After a great question submitted by Hattie Stewart we chewed the fat over the latest art and design news, including the new identity for the Royal Albert Hall and the much talked-about cover for The Gentlewoman. In section two we discuss London Fashion Week, the sartorial habits of creatives, our new Workwear feature and the effect social media has on the the world around fashion week. Any comments, complaints, compliments – just get in touch via Twitter, email, or the comments box below.

HELLO podlings. Boy has there been a lot of news in the world of art and design this week, ready to catch up? Join me, Liv Siddall, and my guests Rob Alderson and Karl Toomey to fill you in on all you need to know. In this episode we chat the new Skoda ad , The New Yorker’s90th birthday (happy birthday, we love you), the NME (maybe) going free, London Fashion Week and the very exciting nominations for 2015’s Designs of the Year.

Alright lads and lasses! The new-look podcast is back again with 24 minutes of art and design themed chinwagging for your delectation. We kick off with a predictably leftfield opening question from illustrator, artist and former It’s Nice That Graduate Edward Monaghan about the purpose of art and its future. Yeah we went there!

Welcome to a rather exciting brand new season of Studio Audience. We’ve got fun new visuals by the talented Guy Field, a somewhat catchy new jingle from illustrator, animator and music-maker Paul Layzell, and we’ve generally had a little bit of a “spruce.”

Do you reckon Ai Wei Wei might like a bouncy castle for Christmas? We do. There’s a whopping total of SIX people in this podcast including It’s Nice That Directors Alex Bec and Will Hudson, and boy is it hectic. In it we discuss the creative world in 2014, the year gone by and the one approaching us, and tales of Rob going to church when he was little. Sound good? It’s better. Merry Christmas from the whole It’s Nice That team, and we will see you on the other side for more Studio Audience!

Afternoon pod fans! We’re back for another week (got to admire our dedication if NOTHING else) and this week we’re talking about Band Aid 30 off the back of this excellent Bryony Gordon evisceration of the whole shebang before moving on to chat about our new digital publishing feature and why online pioneers don’t get the same attention as the so-called golden age of print. As ever listen using the SoundCloud embed below or subscribe via iTunes here.